Videos: Record them to DVD
First know that the copy you make of a DVD or indeed a CD, is fragile compared to a company recorded disk. Never, ever think of it as a way of permanently storing information. It is not.
No computer in general use writes the information as deeply, as permanently, to the disk as do the machines used by the recording companies.
This does not mean you should not do it. Just take the greatest of care of them and always keep them in a folder. Handle them by the edges when you put them in and out of a player.
The only program you need is a disk burning programs. There are lots of them. They author and author and burn video DVDs. (A note: If you think this is a good way to do back-up understand that not everyone agrees with you. As far as many are concerned the idea is a snare and a delusion. As a permanent, safe copy it is not THAT safe, not THAT permanent.)
To get the best results on creating these disks you must record at a resolution and frame rate that will yield good playback quality on your DVD player. On most cameras this will be 640×480 at 30 frames per second.
It is not difficult. First you transfer your movies from your camera to computer, and then drag the digital files into the disc-burning program.
For the format you need, select DVD video, if you are going to make a menu do that now. Then click burn, baby, burn. Actually, you only click burn but it sounds more dramatic put like that.
The program does the rest, re-encoding the movie if necessary and then formatting it as a standard DVD.
The program that is probably the most widely used is Nero 9 which is simple to use, author-proof — that is to say fool-proof — and the older version worked very well for a long time.
There is the new version and it is simpler, not more complex. Which is the sign of a good program.
In theory you can edit to Blu-ray Disks although there are some debates as to the future of that disk format. There are other programs but Nero 9 at about $100 this is possibly the best of them.
You can get a free trial version at http://www.nero.com.
If you want to edit and record videos and generally make your videos them look very professional either get or borrow a Macintosh: second hand will do. This is not to start a war with PC users. It is just that if you have seen the two working in comparison over the years the Mac is so much better, so much more instinctive that all comparisons are laughable.
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January 26th, 2009
Save yourself $100, use Devede if you want to convert Videos to a DVD. It is a free program for both Windows and Linux. It will convert most any video format into a ISO. Then you take nearly any inexpensive or free disc burning utility and burn it as a ISO.
I wanted to convert some videos, I had Nero 7. But Nero would not let me convert anything to a DVD unless I opted for the more expensive Nero software. I found Devede on the Ubuntu repositories, it worked great with Linux. Then looked online and found there was a Windows version too.
Nero is a great burning software program, however there are also other burning software programs out there for both Windows and Linux that can do quite a bit for free.